


If You Ever Need a Stranger

by Peapods



Category: The X-Files
Genre: Episode Related, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-01-30
Updated: 2010-01-30
Packaged: 2017-10-06 20:56:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,696
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/57669
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Peapods/pseuds/Peapods
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In "The Red and the Black" Skinner hears Scully's tape from her memeory regression session. He is, to say the least, disturbed.</p>
            </blockquote>





	If You Ever Need a Stranger

He turned off the tape and ran his hands over his face and scalp. He wasn't ready for that. Through the years they had worked together, Scully had been the voice of reason to Mulder's lunacy. She was strong and compassionate and completely devoted to finding the actual truth, not being so blinded by personal vendetta and mission--despite having great reason to be--that the investigation became little more than farce. But this tape...

He rose from his desk and moved into his living room. He had finally moved out of the apartment he'd taken after Sharon died and moved into a house in Silver Springs, Maryland. He poured a stiff glass of whiskey and bolted it down before pouring a proper drink, ice and all. He moved into his kitchen and opened his refrigerator but wasn't seeing anything.

She had sounded so distressed. He had seen her during her cancer, watched from the sidelines while Mulder was invited ever closer. She had never broken, not when Mulder was there, definitely not when Skinner was there. Abduction, her sister's murder, cancer, countless other traumas and assaults and she'd never sounded as bad as she had on that tape.

Walter Skinner had no delusions. He knew he didn't know this woman as well as he wanted to. Dana Scully only let any one person see what she wanted them to see. And Walter had no doubt what he'd seen was nothing like the real woman. Oh, he'd seen inklings, but he couldn't help but wonder, and know he was right and be jealous, that Mulder had seen more.

He shook his head and pulled out some Chinese take-out from the night before. While his beef and broccoli reheated he swirled his drink, letting the warmth of the first one convince him to take it slow. He didn't drink often, not anymore. A few glasses of very nice whiskey would have him sleeping in no time.

It'd be the only way to forget her voice.

He wondered how she was dealing with what she'd heard. He knew she wouldn't just accept it. She would question it from all angles. Memory, Walter knew intimately, was not to be trusted on its own.

But, Christ, it could be a real kick in the butt.

The microwave beeped and he took his plate and his whiskey back into the living room and switched on the television. Madden's voice started screaming over his surround sound speakers and he winced as the picture finally resolved and he changed the channel. He had _no_ wish to watch "Law and Order," a show he thought should have gone off the air years ago if it weren't for Jerry Orbach. He couldn't deal with the crassness of "Seinfeld." Finally, he settled on "E.R."

He finished his beef and broccoli and his third glass of whiskey as the credits came up. He could tell himself honestly that he didn't remember anything that had happened on the show.

How should he approach tomorrow's meeting? With all his skepticism? Or should he ask Scully first, what she thought and felt? Would it be easier for her to hear what he thought first? Be able to breathe a sigh of relief that her superior found the events fantastic too? Or would she feel betrayed. But no, he had to come right out and say it. He knew she'd just sit there and wait if he didn't.

He resolved to sleep on it. There was no other clear choice before him.

*****

The following evening found him fixing yet another drink. One of these days he was seriously going to retire. He'd done this for far too long, he decided. Watching people under his care, his responsibility be put in danger, watch them suffer--mentally, physically, and emotionally-- from the pitfalls of their chosen profession. That, it seemed, was the only thing that kept him from feeling the sense of grave responsibility he'd felt in Vietnam--most of those men, boys really, had not chosen to be there. His agents had, and they hadn't walked away.

He was contemplating whether to order pizza or be smart and order a sandwich when his bell rang. He sighed and let his head hang a moment as this couldn't be anything good. But he padded into the entryway and opened the door anyway. And found, to his ever great surprise, Agent Scully standing there looking incredibly uncomfortable.

"Agent Scully?"

"I'm sorry, sir, to bother you at home," she said in a professional voice. Except that it was too soft to be entirely professional.

"There's no problem," he said before pulling the door open and stepping back. "Come on in."

She entered hesitantly and he could tell she was silently judging his taste. He had to admit that the place was quite a step up and away from his condo. Wood panelling covered almost everything. He'd done what he could to make it _not_ look like a bachelor pad, knowing he had the money. So he had gone for comfort and simple color schemes. Lots of green and maroon. He wondered what she thought of it.

But she was looking at him now. He nodded to himself. He was wearing a t-shirt and track pants. Not exactly boss-wear.

"Come on back. I was about to order food. You hungry?" He did not know what had possessed him to ask, but he figured it would probably be rude to order food and not ask her.

Yeah, that was it exactly, Walter, tell us another one.

"Um," she looked like she was going to decline for a moment but then a strange look came over her face. "What are you having?"

"Well, my cardiologist, the voice of reason in my head, tells me it's going to be sandwiches. But you have no idea how good the idea of a pizza with everything sounds," he groaned thinking of it. She smiled, genuinely it seemed, before shaking her head.

"Sandwiches, I think then. You may keep in excellent shape, sir, but you were shot only two years ago," she said, acting as the other voice of reason in his head.

"Yeah," he sighed. "You're probably right." He called the deli a few streets away and gave them their orders before breaking out two very dark beers.

"Are you trying to get me drunk sir?" she asked, taking a pull from her bottle.

"No, if I were trying to do that I would have already broken out the Woodford Reserve," he said with a grin.

"I love bourbon," she sighed. "I very rarely indulge. None of my family, except my father, ever had a taste for it. Mulder is too much a fan of the tequila. Or," she said with an indulgent smile. "So he tells me. Frankly, I have doubts about his ability to hold his liquor."

"Really? Never been drinking with him?" Walter was absolutely not going to pursue this line of questioning. She was shaking her head.

"Which makes me doubt his drinking chops. I've drank grown men under the table," she said with a sly smile.

"Who were these grown men?" he asked.

"Old sailing buddies of my father. When I turned 21 they all took me out and got me drunk. Very, very drunk." Walter laughed long and loud at the thought of 21 year-old Dana Scully taking shots with veteran sailors.

For the next hour they drank beer, ate excellent sandwiches from a deli down the street and talked about everything except the F.B.I, aliens, and Fox Mulder. Walter was astonished to find they had a lot in common as far as their individual tastes went. She even complimented his current furnishings. After finishing dinner they retired to the living room where Walter flicked on the TV, turning it on low on a basketball game. He cracked open another two beers and gestured for her to take a seat. She took the armchair and sat with her elbows on her knees, cradling her beer.

"I wish you hadn't heard that tape," she said. Walter took a swig of beer.

"To be honest, Scully, I kind of wish I hadn't either," her head flicked up in surprise. "It was very disturbing to hear one my agents in that kind of distress," he explained.

"I really can't explain it, sir," she said.

"You don't have to," he told her shaking his head. "You were found unconscious in the woods, no one is going to be berating you for not remembering something like that. It could have happened the way the tape said," he carefully did not say "the way _she_ had said". "Or it could have been something different. Memory is... not to be trusted."

She stared at him for a long time. He stared right back. He wanted to show her that she wasn't going to be judged because of this. She wasn't going to be any less in his eyes for this peek into her mind.

"I think I'd better go," she said softly. They both stood but Walter felt that something was about to slip away from him. Some opportunity, a chance to make things right.

"Scully?" she turned to him. "I think you're the strongest person I know. I want--I need to apologize for everything I have and haven't done."

"Sir?"

"You need to know that..." he couldn't find his words. He wasn't generally an eloquent man though he was well spoken. "If I had known, even for a second, all the pain you'd be caused I would have let that bastard but a bullet in my head before doing his dirty work."

She looked stunned at his admission. It held so much of what he felt for her in it. "I _will_ do everything I can for you, Scully. For as long as I can."

He could see her chest rising and falling, hear her rough breath, but he couldn't come closer. Couldn't cross that line.

Could do nothing but give her words.

"Thank you, sir," she whispered, eyes bright, before turning and letting herself out.

Walter broke out the Woodford Reserve. He needed to get drunk.


End file.
